what i have in my two hands is enough to set me free

[shardmods]

After eight long, difficult weeks of fighting, you've finally done it. You've put an end to Neo Metal Sonic's dreams of conquest and with it, you've saved not only this world, but all worlds. Perhaps not everything is wrapped up as neatly as some of you would like, but you've done what you set out to do, and now you can breathe a sigh of relief.

In the hours that follow the immediate aftermath of Neo Metal Sonic's defeat, Tails sets about figuring out how to control the Egg Fleet and recall them to where Neo Metal Sonic had them stationed. Sonic heads out into the city - and then even further beyond - to ensure that the people are starting to regain their senses without anyone to suppress their free will anymore. Knuckles escorts you back to the base, then takes a ring to hop into the Void to let Shadow and Infinite know what's going on.

As for you all? You aren't expected to do any work, because you've done so much today. Take a load off and take the time to rest - you deserve it.

For those of you who can't wait to get home, you're welcome to grab a ring from one of your colorful friends and head straight back, but for those of you willing to take the night off and regroup in the morning, you'll find that said colorful friends have put together a party for you - or, well, they tried their best. The decorations are store-bought (or not) and simple, Sonic seems to have thought confetti is the best way to throw a party and there is so much of it getting showered on all of you the moment you walk into the room, and someone obtained a sheet cake that did not have any sort of message on it, so an awkwardly scrawled message of "THANKS FOR HELP" is written in bright green icing that clashes with the cake's soft pink and red color scheme. An attempt was made.

You're welcome to hang out here - both in the new base and in this world as a whole - for as long as you'd like. Permanently, even, if you don't have any intention of going home. After all, you've more than earned it. Sonic and friends will gladly help you figure out a way to get settled here.

If you do choose to stay for any length of time and head out into the city, you'll find that people are indeed starting to return to their daily lives. They don't really understand - or remember - what happened, but they do recognize you as someone they have some innate fondness for, regardless of how startling your appearance may be to them. The city itself has seen better days thanks to the spread of Eggman's chroma, but thankfully the natural elements are recovering from that just fine. The buildings, streets, and the like will not naturally recover, so it seems Chicago's going to require some pretty intensive rebuilding...

But for the time being, everything is going smoothly, and you've done everything that was asked of you. You're free to return home. If you do, your shard may eventually come loose and simply fall off, ridding you of both the shard and its powers. Or maybe it won't, and you'll have that memory of your time in this world forever, along with the power innate to you and the ones you can activate from your fellow shardbearers whenever you're near each other.

Congratulations, shardbearers. You've done the impossible, and maybe even formed some new bonds along the way.

( Welcome to the final log of Shardbond! With this, you have successfully navigated your way through the Sonic friendship game and no one died! Hooray!!! For this final log, you may do whatever you'd like - if you want to use this to do an immediate aftermath top level, go for it! Party top level? Sure? Post-game top level? Have fun! You want to bring a castmate in and NPC them or have someone else play them? Also cool! Generally speaking, you are now free to do what you will with the setting as a whole - your fuzzy little friends will be hard at work making sure that you all are able to get home and/or get settled just fine, and they'll also be keeping an eye out for one (1) Neo Metal Sonic. And also Infinite, I guess, unless someone wants to take that stray jackal with them but like, no one needs that. )

NAVIGATION

Comments

[shardnpcs]

[Your friendly talking animals are here for the party, of course! They've even dragged Shadow and Infinite from the Void for this, so you can chat with any of them.

Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles are trying to be good hosts, but this party is sort of... well, they tried, and surely that counts for something? Sorry about all the confetti everywhere. No, Sonic will not stop, he has more. You can expect to be ambushed by him at some point. Tails has finally stopped working for five minutes to try to bring everyone drinks and snacks, because you guys were so good about doing that for him, so let him return the favor!! And Knuckles will try to shove cake at you, because he is very proud of his cake, okay. He even cut it himself! (It is poorly cut too.)

Shadow will spend approximately an hour here, which is an hour more than he would allow under most circumstances. You'll want to catch him before he accosts Sonic for a ring and then simply leaves, because he is not coming back after this. He's got plenty of things to be doing back home, after all. For the duration of the party, he'll be holding up the walls and watching you all, with the usual frown in place despite the festivities.

Infinite is holding up the opposite wall, glaring daggers at Shadow, but at least he's not throwing down. He's chilled out quite a bit from being in the Void so he'll talk to any of you that seek him out, though he will get the shards of the Phantom Ruby from Shadow before Shadow ditches this world entirely. Still, it's not enough for Infinite to go back to messing with anyone's nightmares or creating illusions, so at least there's that. He's not entirely sure where he's going from here, but he'll figure something out.

And... well, there is one robot, holding up one of the other walls and keeping to himself. Neo Metal Sonic is here, watching you all impassively. Wow, look at that. We are 3/6 characters holding up the walls. Incredible stuff. I don't know what any of you expected, this is a top level for six damn characters. Free me.

Take this time and enjoy yourselves; you've more than earned it!]

Sonic

[holeful]

[Sonic can throw confetti at him if he wants, he's fine with that.]

Ah, Sonic, you said we could stay, but I wanted to ask, can I also keep helping Team Sonic out as well? I don't know how much use I'd be just as myself, but...

I mean, you gave me my freedom back too, you know. Whether I deserve it or not.

[shardnpcs]

[Enjoy being covered in so much confetti, Fukuda.]

Yeah, 'course you can! You've more than earned it; you put your all into helping everyone get this far - and you guys saved the world! C'mon, that's definitely enough to get you into Team Sonic.

[tails despairing in the bg— no i kid, everyone is now (mostly) cool with fukuda after the saving the world thing.]

Main Trio

[beathollow]

( hey. hi. yall are going to get the standard mafuyu hugs, first. she doesn't even seem phased by the confetti! she will also accept the cake. )

What do you plan on doing now...?

[shardnpcs]

[Hugs!! Everyone in for a group hug!! At that, Tails and Knuckles look to Sonic.]

Well, first things first, we've gotta make sure all the people in this world are coming back alright. They seem to be doing fine so far, but I'm gonna keep tabs on 'em, just to be sure. After that?

I'm going to get access to all of Eggman's stuff; Neo Metal Sonic has already given me all the info I need. I'll make sure everything's deactivated and can no longer be used as a threat. Eggman's still around here somewhere too, so we're going to have to figure out how much he knows and if he's going to try anything like this again.

I will guard the Master Emerald, to ensure its power cannot fall into the wrong hands again. Of course, this also means keeping an eye on that one.

[Knuckles inclines his head to indicate Neo Metal Sonic.]

Infinite

[beathollow]

... Penny for your thoughts?

[shardmods]

[Hey, Mafuyu. Infinite looks up, raising a hand to his mask at the question.]

...You all did well.

[praise???? praise from infinite????? it's only because it's mafuyu.]

I will admit I hadn't expected... any of that.

[Vague gesture in the direction of Neo Metal Sonic. Seriously, why does he look like that. No one told him about Metal Sonic's rebellious arc???]

knuckles? probably?

[plushes]

Hey...

[ What's up he's so tired but: ]

Do you have the emerald, Knuckles? I just...need a little favor.

[shardnpcs]

[Yo, Percy. You picked the right colorful friend, Knuckles is the one with the newly-reformed Master Emerald! It's a big green... well, emerald, about the size of Knuckles' fist. He has it with him, even!]

What sort of favor do you need?

Neo Metal Sonic

[holeful]

[Viktor basically said he was in charge of Neo, but also. Fukuda wants to establish himself in the hierarchy somehow.]

Neo, that's what we're calling you for short, right? Are you up for talking right now?

[metaloverlord]

[Neo Metal Sonic watches Fukuda approach, remaining still and silent until spoken to.]

It is acceptable, and yes, I am. What do you have to ask?

infinite

[mightsnap]

[ hey we're holding the wall up? sick sick sick ]

You'll be happy to know that my final combat form was absolutely horrifying. I was practically sequined.

[shardmods]

[Oh, Wednesday, you're such a mood.]

Truly? Disgusting. Who thought that was a good idea?

[chaos emeralds have no taste smhhhhh]

neo (+ some handwaving, lmk if you wanna actually thread any???)

[ungratefuloz]

[Optional handwaves that'll be happening first:

1. First off. Tails you are getting so hugged. Like absolutely hugged after this.
2. ...Tails you will also be meeting Rapunzel, who is going to be hilariously confused at all of this but very amendable to the cute fox and endeared. Enjoy meeting another Nikke!! This one is very sweet and religious and not sure if she'll actually ever remember him if pressed, but meeting him has definitely shaken her resolve on going back home a teensy bit...
3. Shadow. You will be getting one little convo out of Dorothy before you go; nothing major, just kind of checking to see what he's gonna do. Dorothy will give him a few of her extra rings, telling him about Dahngrest, and probably hinting that he should visit if he ever gets time. (Not because she'd miss him, or anything. Nope. Surely not!)

But Neo...well, Dorothy visits him after Rapunzel's gone off on her own, and she'll stop just a little bit away, smiling.]

Neo? Would you mind if I checked in on you, or would you prefer to be left alone?

hmu after this thread and we'll see about doing others!

[metaloverlord]

[Neo Metal Sonic remains still and silent, watching Dorothy's approach, but saying nothing until she speaks to him.]

I do not mind.

[do you know how much of a struggle it is not to immediately go "robots are incapable of emotion" when you spent the whole fight dealing with feelings? terrible.]

tails

[crosswired]

[He keeps his interactions with the main group pretty minimal and professional - out of all of them, Sonic should be very well aware that Vakama's running a pretty strict deadline as it is! Sorry for almost shooting you when we met, buddy.

Still, before he thinks about leaving, he at least tries to hunt down their little foxy friend. Their first conversation stuck with him quite a lot, after all...]

[shardnpcs]

[it's fine, vakama wasn't the only one,,,

Anyway! Tails is here, currently taking a break from trying to look out for everyone and tapping away on some device - unlike all of his previous work, he doesn't seem as intently focused and more like he's just doing this for funsies. Finally he can catch a break...]

Oh, hey, Vakama! How's it going? Are you enjoying the party?

neo metal sonic

[tworo]

[Of course, Turo will approach Neo sooner rather than later. There's no sense leaving him hanging. It's...nice? That he's getting to hang around for the party? He guesses???]

I'm available to start working on your programming whenever you like. Tails has the proper equipment here, and I think I will be staying in Chicago for a little while longer, at least.

[They don't really have any travel plans yet, after all.]

[metaloverlord]

[Neo Metal Sonic watches Turo's approach, though only speaks up when he's spoken to.]

Understood. Whenever you are ready to begin, then.

[On the one hand, it'd be kind of rude to drag Turo from the party, but on the other hand he did offer, so.]

tails

[tworo]

[He doesn't eat, so there's little reason for his path to cross Tails' while the little fox is handing out food and drink. He'll just have to approach on his own, then, during a quiet moment.]

May I ask you something?

[shardnpcs]

[Not to worry, Tails recognizes he needs to take breaks sometimes, so Turo will approach him while he's drinking his own tea and just chilling.]

Hey, Turo! Of course, what's up?

tails

[morningstud]

[Even after everything, Lucifer manages to exude confidence. It's just who he is, which means that he swaggers on over to Tails, but has the kindness to him that he's always had around the boy.]

I was wondering what you will be doing, now.

[He'll of course be talking to Sonic and Knuckles, too, but that can be handwaved in favor of talking to The Boy.]

[shardnpcs]

[Don't worry, he can speak for all three of them!! Tails grins at Lucifer's approach, holding up a hand in greeting.]

Well, we've got to make sure that everything goes back to the way it should be. Sonic's going to be busy checking in on various people throughout the world - though they're already regaining their senses of self, so it shouldn't be too long before that's normal. Knuckles is keeping the Master Emerald safe. He's told us that he plans to hide it somewhere that no one will be able to find, so that this can't happen again. And I'm working on dismantling all of the stuff Neo Metal Sonic and Eggman left behind; better to make sure that it can't be used again.

So it'll be a lot of work. But it'll be worth it! After all, you guys took care of the really hard part.

sonic;

[divinevoid]

[ They tried and that is what matters.

Void Archives will be making their departure soon, but it doesn't mean that they won't be saying good-byes to one of the Sonic Team. ]

My, my, it seems everything has gone quite well.

I would say that it means you picked decently - especially where I am concerned. There is no doubt in that.

Though, I found it within myself to give you a proper farewell. It'd be quite a shame to depart without saying good-bye, no?

rolls in for neo an eternity later

[hexalding]

Are those repairs holding up?

[sorry did you think you escaped your new robot dad]

I can take a closer look later on, if you think it necessary.